A Date with Fate
by BrokenxIdentity
Summary: After all these years, she did not expect to see him again. Out of everyone she knew in the past from that incident, the last person she wanted to see was him. If anything, she thought he was dead. Why did he have to appear in front of her again? SS
1. Chapter 1

**A Date with Fate**

After all these years, she did not expect to see_ him _again. Out of everyone she knew in the past from that incident, the last person she wanted to see was _him_. If anything, she thought he was dead. Why did he have to appear in front of her again?

Even after half a decade of not meeting, he could still make her melt.

"Hey, I didn't expect to see you here," he said nonchalantly, as if he really _didn't_ expect to meet her at café where they had first met.

With a meek answer, she responded, "Me neither. How've you been?"

"Great. Just travelling around, you know, killing time."

She wished she had time to kill. Suddenly, the ground seemed more interesting than he was—or at least, it gave her a reason not to look at him. He must have noticed that she was uncomfortable, as always, she would stare at the ground whenever she was uncomfortable with someone; he just never thought that the person would be him.

"Well," he began, "I have to meet with someone pretty soon. So I should get going. It's really great to see you again."

Smiling, she replicated the statement, "Yea, it is. I'll see you around."


	2. Chapter 2

In case you are wondering, I do have exclusive rights to this story because I did write it, though under a different penname. Those of you who know, please keep it on the down low - since I don't really like to broadcast it. Thank you!

In case it was not clear enough, these characters do not belong to me. Thank you!

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><p><strong>A Date with Fate<strong>

What more could she possibly want than to see him again? Oh, well, to not see him again. That would be most ideal if she could help it at all. But she couldn't, and it wasn't helping the fact that he was attending the same university as she was now, majoring in the same subjects. That meant only one thing: they'd see each other for a full three hours during the day.

She groaned, catching the unruly honey locks traveling down the crowd of people. Quickly escaping into her classroom, she slammed the door shut, despite that sooner or later, the guy would join her anyways. At the sound of the shutting door, the man standing at the chalkboard stopped his writing. The writing of the beautiful Greek letters have been delayed.

"Sakura, what the hell are you doing?" the short man raised an eyebrow in her direction as he watched her slouched against the door, "You do realize... that this is no longer high school."

"Yes… but—"

"That's right, now back away from the door and let the nice students come in. We're doing a lab today. I wouldn't want the mortality rate to go down for any reasons," he retorted, returning to his blackboard to continue what Sakura thought to be beautiful symbols.

"But…" she paused, approaching him before lowering her voice into a whisper, "Why did you have to accept him as a student?"

"Him?"

The conversation ended abruptly when the object of their conversation came into view. Amber eyes scanned the surroundings before they landed on her. He greeted her as he closed the distance between where they stood. Sakura frowned, excusing herself before taking her new seat towards the back of the class. Normally, she would knock people out of their seats, burn their backpacks, and/or steal their physics book to stay in the front, but today, everyone in the classroom swarmed onto the front of the room where the best grades would be for the taking.

Professor Ting looked at her strangely before shifting his gaze to his newly acquired student. For a split second, his eyes flashed, and Sakura knew that he had identified the source of her troubles. After about five minutes of conversing, she watched as her uncle nodded at the man she had been avoiding. He smiled and nodded in a manner that appeared as though he was thanking him for something and turned around to scan the room once more. The students at the front who had been gaping at his back now got a look at his front. Surely there have never been a more shocked-looking bunch of university students. It's as though all the guys have turned gay and all the lesbians have turned straight. Well, that may be an exaggeration, but it was close enough.

When he turned towards her direction, she could almost see why everyone swooned. Even during the Saturday that they had ran into each other, she didn't get a chance to take a good look at him. Now was definitely the time to get a good look at him, and indeed, she _did_ get a good look at him. His unruly hair had gotten unrulier for no apparently reason, almost to the point where they seemed to defy gravity as well. Perhaps that was the reason why Professor Ting had accepted him as a student: to study the behavior of his hair and how it defies gravity. Or perhaps it was the inexplicable way his shirt clung to his chest. For somebody's sake, it was as if the shirt was stalking him. Well, perhaps one could see it that way or one could simply say that the shirt was… well, let's just say it was like a second skin, only… it looked good on him. Sakura groaned, why did her hormones pick this moment in time to be raging?

If Darwin's natural selection had anything to do with his looks being passed down the generations as a survival trait, surely by now it has been perfected. Damn Darwin. There would be no better survivor than the man standing at the front of the room, showing off his chiseled features with his seemingly confused expression. The girls in the classroom sounded as though they were whimpering, speaking to one another as if they didn't care where he would sit. Under that mysterious girly language, they were actually begging for him to sit next to them: hence, the evenly spaced out seats devoid of its usual guys. For some reason, Sakura hated the look on her uncle's face; he seemed to enjoy this event. Professor Ting's eyes traveled around the room until they landed on Sakura, whose adjacent seat was occupied by her backpack, laptop, and several other textbooks.

Sakura offered a smug look to her uncle, daring him to do what the look on his face dictates. Suddenly, at the smile on her uncle's face, she lost her smug expression. The elder man approached the young man with a soft tap, calling his attention to the girl sitting at the far end of the room. The old bastard spoke in an almost mocking tone, "Sakura, why don't you move your stuff for our new student?"

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><p>Love it? Hate it? Let me know!<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

:) Enjoy?

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><p><strong>A Date with Fate<strong>

"You know, uncle Ting, I'm beginning to think that you probably hate me. Of course it wasn't obvious until you sat me next to the new kid."

"What are you talking about? He sat down next to you."

"Because you told him to!"

"Sakura, you are obviously not attracted to this person. Is there any reason why? Just by looking at his facial structure, I was able to discern that he had characteristics almost ideal for a potential mate. I'm sure that you've caught on as well—why would you reject that?"

"I don't know... maybe because he's my-"

"Professor Ting?" the all-so-familiar voice echoed down the hallway of the lecture building. Sakura groaned, quickly surveying surroundings for a potential hiding spot. "Are you still here?"

"Yes, Syaoran, what is it?" Professor Ting replied with a smug smirk on his face when Sakura scrambled to be hidden in the lab coat closet.

From the small crack that allowed a bit of light into the closet, Sakura was able to see him enter the room. He walked with a suave air, as if the world was there to watch his every step.

"Is there something you need, Syaoran?"

"Yes... I know this is a bit childish, but... do you have assigned seating in this classroom?"

Professor Ting appeared bewildered by such a question, "Why, of course not, Syaoran. You are allowed to sit wherever you please."

"Ah... well, alright. I see, thank you."

Sakura glared at him through the closet, not believing he had said such a thing. As he turned around, her uncle called to him, "Syaoran! Does this have anything to do with Sakura?"

"I... don't know."

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	4. Chapter 4

"Damnit, Sakura, you promised me yesterday that you'd come with me tonight."

"I know, I know, Tomoyo... but I'm tired!"

The ebony-haired girl glared at the lump covered by the wool blanket. With hands on her hips and face scrunched up in a frown, she nudged her best friend's back with her foot, feeling the slight movement of a girl trying her very best not to let slip a giggle. Tired? Yea right. Rolling her eyes, she proceeded to ask as she always had prior to every time they went to the club together on Saturdays, "And what could you possibly be tired about?"

"Yesterday we had a projectile motion lab..."

"Okay... what's wrong with those? I thought you love those labs where there's a slight potential of killing someone."

"I know, I do... but then my partner.."

It had piqued her interest, hearing that Sakura had any hint of intimidation towards a lab partner. It wasn't normal hearing her best friend feel anything but excited after finishing a physics lab—meaning she wasn't usually tired when delivering her excuses, more attentive to her laptop than to Tomoyo's words. Quickly seating herself next to the lump, she leaned onto it, asking playfully: "Oh? What are you talking about?"

Sakura replied in a high pitch voice, pulling her blanket closer to herself: "It was Li."

"Li... who? Wait—wait a minute, don't tell me. The Li? The guy you used to date in high school? You mean the one you almost-"

"Thanks for refreshing my memory, best friend," the girl's voice seeped through her blanket.

"That doesn't mean he'll be there at the club tonight. Come with me!"

"No! He went to talk to my uncle today about not having to sit next to me. Can you believe that?" Sakura grunted when she uncovered herself, "The nerve of someone doing that when obviously, they're in the wrong. I normally sit in the front. I sat at the back to avoid him, but noooo, Uncle Ting decided he'd test my reaction when there's someone near me. How nice of a family is this guy? If there's any means of natural selection, I'm putting him down first."

"I'm sure your uncle was just being nice to Syaoran since he saw that you might know him."

"Oh please, Tomoyo. More like he was taking advantage of the expression on my face. Look at my face, does it look like it wants to sit next to that guy?"

"Why do you hate him so much anyways? It's been almost five years now. You were a senior in high school, now you're a senior in college—"

"Yea, and I studied my ass off in those IB classes, why do I deserve this?"

"Yes, and good for you, now stop your whining and get dressed."


	5. Chapter 5

A longer than usual chapter, hopefully to make up for my absence. Enjoy!

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><p>Syaoran's amber eyes scanned the crowd, trailing after his cousin until they reached a small room which had been split into two smaller ones for separate groups. The crew occupied one side of the room, throwing shells of peanuts at each other while joking vivaciously. He could recognize all of them, the Tomoeda High alumni. Smiling, he greeted each of them with a punch on the shoulder and a pat on the back before sitting down next to his cousin, Eriol.<p>

"How about it, Syaoran? Gonna buy us a drink?" Yamazaki asked, pushing to Syaoran a plate of peanuts. The guy was surely drunk, but knowing Yamazaki, if he hasn't changed, that's probably how he normally acts. His forgetful self was always the source of entertainment in the group.

Syaoran chuckled and nodded, ordering the guys a drink before he started to help himself to the snacks: "So what's the occasion?"

Raising an eyebrow at his cousin, Eriol began to ask as though the voicemail he left on the twenty-three-year-old's machine had gone unheard: "What do you mean what's the occasion? It's a welcome-back party. Tomoyo's coming later with her girls. You might meet someone."

"Not my girlfriend though, if you touch Rika," Yamazaki smiled drunkenly, draping an arm over the amber-eyed young man, "I... I don't know what I'm gonna do."

"Are they all from Tomoeda High too?" Syaoran asked, suddenly remembering that Tomoyo was friends with a certain girl that he was trying to avoid.

"Some. Some of her colleagues are coming. They don't know you, but they're here to hang out, I guess you can say," Eriol responded, downing another mug of beer.

When did he become such a drinker? Syaoran stared at his cousin, who was reaching for a smaller mug after he had nearly choked on the mug he was holding. The man seemed to have a throat similar to that of a vortex. Syaoran imagined that Tomoyo must have some kind of issue with Eriol's drinking if she was not infatuated by it. Hell, he was infatuated with it, the way the alcohol went down his throat.

"Eriol... when did you start drinking like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like a pig." Tomoyo emerged from the door with her hands on her hips and eyebrow raised in a furious stare.

Gulping, Eriol returned the mug of beer to the table before chuckling nervously: "You know, the guys are having fun tonight. Look at Syaoran."

"Well, Sakura-"

As if by cue, the twenty-two-year-old's voice came out from behind her. "Tomoyo! You said he wasn't going to be here."

"Sakura. I said that he _might_ not be here, but I lied either way. Now get over it."

Sakura pouted, throwing her new brown-haired classmate a light glare before sitting down next to her best friend, who took a seat next to her boyfriend. Syaoran nodded, accepting this incident as a truce, at least for tonight. While Yamazaki and the guys continued to party—unlike Tomoyo, the other girls downed several mugs of beer as well, and who knows where it all went—there was an awkward tension in the air. Be it some electrostatic force sent between the amber-eyed man and the emerald-eyed woman who was trying to avoid him or the purple-eyed lady's glare at her boyfriend's naïve idea that tonight might be the night that he could go all out.

What a strange night it was. Sakura looked around for the first time; night clubs never interested her, because they seemed like the most probable cause for a seizure. Despite college being the prime of her life, she was not going to risk paying thousands of dollars because she spent a few nights in the hospital after getting a seizure from partying with a few reckless idiots. That said, here she was. And why? Because her BEST FRIEND thought it'd be nice to lie to the poor girl so that she'd come down and see the sucker who talked poorly of her to her own uncle!

Within a second, she downed a mug of beer. Eriol stared at her with wide-eyed shock before shifting his gaze to Tomoyo; while he owned the club, that doesn't stop his girlfriend from killing him just because he didn't stop her best friend from drinking. Sakura let out a sound of disgust, staring at the empty mug of beer as though it had compromise her entire immune system before her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Tomoyo stared at her best friend in wide-eyed horror, suddenly remembering the lack of tolerance the girl had to alcohol. She had learned it the hard way by letting her friend take a shot of liquor for her and staying in bed for an entire week.

"Tomoyo," Eriol hiccuped, "Maybe you should take her home."

"Sakura," Tomoyo called her friend, shaking her. However, the girl remained unconscious and continued to sleep.

Syaoran frowned. He had witnessed something like this before, and he didn't want to stay around and wait for what happened next. As he made a move to stand up, Sakura's voice shouted, stopping all of the cheerful voices in the room: "Little wolf! Where's my little wolf?"

Sitting up, the girl's lower lips jutted out into a pout as she scanned the crowd for said 'little wolf.' The Tomoeda High alumni stared at her in fear, remembering the incident that happened their senior year. The incident when she took the wrong drink and ended up attacking everyone but Syaoran at the dinner party mainly because she suspected that he-

"Sakura. Calm down." Syaoran spoke in a leveled voice, hands raised in a defensive position. "There's no need for-"

"For what? Do you think I'm drunk? Does it look like I'm drunk?" Before he could answer, she beat him to it, "As a matter of fact, I am drunk. For this reason, I am able to allow this state to be blamed for any crimes I might commit. And you, Eriol."

He sure picked the wrong day to be named Eriol and own a club and host a welcome back party for Syaoran. Surely, there will be an improvement next time if he lived to see it: don't invite Sakura. Better yet, forget alcohol. The girl walked towards him slowly, holding her index finger pointed at his face. Tomoyo, it appeared, seemed to be enjoying this a whole lot. Hell, he couldn't imagine that his girlfriend at planned this, but then again, she had gotten him into a dress before.

"Yes, Sakura?" he responded obediently, keeping an eye on his smiling girlfriend.

"You know what Tomoyo said to me? She said that you," She stopped, poking her finger at his forehead, "don't come home early anymore ever since you opened this club. Might I suggest foul play here on your part?"

"What are you talking about?" he feigned innocence. Sure, sometimes he stayed a little late with a couple of friends and they brought a couple of girls, but it's not like he's ever done anything unfaithful to his girlfriend.

"Sakura, let's go," Syaoran said bravely, taking hold of his ex-girlfriend's arm.

"Hey! I'm not done yet! Don't get me started on you, pal!" she shouted, jerking her arm away. "Eriol. I should tell you-"

Without a warning, she closed the distance between them, her pained expression just a couple of centimeters away from his as she whispered: "Don't end up like Syaoran and me."

"Are you sure you can take her home?" Tomoyo asked quizzically. Quickly deciding against her own meddling nature, she decided, "Syaoran, here, I can take her home."

"No, no, it's fine. You should look after Eriol," the amber-eyed young man told her, quickly batting her away with his hand while supporting a drunk Sakura with the other. "I don't want to be alone with him when he's drunk. Remember when both Sakura and he were drunk? We nearly had a homicide."

"He thought she was me."

"And obviously, she's not. So you should get him home before he starts coming onto other girls, thinking that they're you."

Without another word, she sighed, dragging her drunken boyfriend to her car while Syaoran went the other way. Obviously, after these many years, Eriol still couldn't handle his alcohol. And after all these years, Sakura was still the same. He had to knock her unconscious before she bit Eriol's neck, thinking that he was food. Not to mention, Tomoyo, knowing that there was no romantic relationship between the two, got a laugh out of the scene.

And here he was, Syaoran Li, in the same car with a snoring Sakura Kinomoto.

It wasn't actually loud snoring, the kind that one hears echoing out of a cave in the middle of nowhere. More like a soft, murmuring snore of who knows what she could be saying in her sleep? Syaoran didn't want to find out. The last time he tried to listen in on her sleep talking, he couldn't sleep for a week. Either way, his job at the moment was to drop her off at her house and flee before she wakes up once more, a drunken monster.

Syaoran was surprised to have arrived at the same place she has lived for all her life. After five years of being gone from Japan, the house hasn't changed much, except now, it seemed much smaller. The dark pink truck sat in the driveway, dusty and old as indications that no one has driven it in years.

"Sakura, where's your key?" he mumbled, reaching for her messenger bag.

"Ask nicely," she slurred, jerking the bag away from him.

"Sakura, dear, where do you keep your key?"

"I buried it. Under the tree."

"You buried your key?"

"Only a fool would keep it under the doormat."

Syaoran checked under the doormat, lifting it up to find a silver key that he suspected Touya left before departing for Canada. When he returned to the car to carry Sakura inside, the passenger seat was empty. Veering his head toward what usually happens next when he sneaked her back into her house five years ago, she was there, climbing over the wooden fence and unsteadily sitting there before she fell back, landing onto the soft grass of her yard. Rolling his eyes at the irony of her routine, he met her inside after she broke the seemingly new sliding door.

"Ah-hah! I beat you!" she chided playfully, letting herself fall onto the couch.

The auburn-haired young woman slept quietly, allowing Syaoran to make himself comfortable on the chair, watching how much she hasn't changed. When he had seen her the other day, he couldn't recognize her. The analytical nature that she had adopted rendered her a stranger to him. And now, there she was, sneaking into her own backyard while the house was empty and completely ignoring the key left under the doormat.

He started to wonder if he had changed any as well. The time he spent in Hong Kong was not wasted on being a rich boy who lived off his mother while in college. His mother literally threw him into the office chair after his father's funeral, leaving him to manage the corporate and his own schoolwork without any help. Those five years were hell. Now he was finally out of that place on his own accord, leaving his mother to manage the corporation while he's gone.

"Why are you here, Syaoran?" Sakura's voice interrupted his thoughts. Her emerald eyes stared at him lazily, glazed over as an indication that she was still drunk.

Syaoran decided to play along, responding playfully: "I've got a kid over here."

Her eyes widened, sitting up as she gasped: "You got a kid?"

"Just playing."

"Asshole."

They sat in silence once more; this time, Sakura had her hands up in the air, fumbling with them. Suddenly, he could feel her eyes observing him, as though analyzing his every detail. He hadn't felt this way in a long time, the need to fidget and fumble, the need to look acceptable in her eyes. The emerald eyes he used to admire appeared darker now, perhaps from the lighting in the room, perhaps from the change that she went through.

"What are you looking at?"

"You," she stated bluntly.

"When did you become this blunt?"

"I found that it was more efficient to tell people what they need to know before it becomes dire."

"Interesting."

"Isn't it? And what about you, Syaoran?"

"What about me?"

"What have you been doing all these years? Why did you leave so abruptly?" her hand covered her eyes, shielding from him the sight of her tears as she asked: "Why did you leave me behind?"

"I-"

"Don't answer. I already have an idea what you'll say from what I found out from Eriol."

"Sakura-"

"Do you still love me?"

"More than you'll ever know, Sakura."

Light became her enemy when she opened her eyes, stinging them far beyond bearable. The aching that possessed her head rendered her defenseless to the amplification of even the smallest sounds. If only she knew that consumption of alcohol would violate the laws of physics—unfortunately, this was only a reliving of an all too familiar experience, except less crazy. The only other time she woke up with a hangover, she stayed in bed for the entire day. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that this was another one of Eriol's pranks to get back at her for talking poorly of him to Tomoyo every time the couple goes on a date.

Resisting the temptation to rip her hair out of her skull, Sakura stood up, leaning against her sofa for support as she scanned the room for something that could possibly lighten her state. Glancing at her clock, she realized the time: class was starting in half an hour. Unfortunately, she lived approximately half an hour away from the university. Groaning inwardly, she cursed at her imaginary enemy: Eriol. Like a chain reaction, his existence led to the creation of his club, which led to yesterday, which will lead to her missing her favorite lab of the year: watching incoming freshmen be the independent variables of a projectile motion lab.

She never missed a day of school before. Despite that colleges and universities refused to give out certificates for perfect attendance, Sakura never did stop sending the Dean letters about starting such a tradition, academicians like her would feel honored to have received such an award. In order to fulfill such a goal, there's no way she could stop and be absent now. Scanning the room for the item, she dove towards it when it came in sight.

Fifteen minutes later, Syaoran stood at her door once again, ringing the doorbell with annoyance. His plans to stay home and sleep away the alcohol in his system had been foiled when Sakura's voice appeared on the other line of his cell phone. He couldn't fathom any other way as to how she could have received his phone number, or how she knew that he lived fifteen minutes away. Forcibly as always, she COMMANDED him to come pick her up and take her to class, as though last night's incident was his fault. Note to self, he thought, kill Eriol later.

The girl jerked opened her door, greeting him with a quick command to hurry.

"Why didn't you just drive yourself to school? You have a car."

"Yes, well, my BAC rating is approximately 0.015%. What makes you think I'm in a suitable state for driving right now? And I need to talk to Tomoyo. That girl, she broke my sliding door last night. I just replaced it too."

He gave her a look, wondering if she remembered anything last night. From her appearance, he could tell that she went through a hangover. For someone who was compulsively obsessed with having a neat and tidy exterior, Sakura didn't even bother to brush her hair or pick a sweater without an orange stain on it. He could see her twitch while he stood there, smirking as she hurried him to open the car door.

"Well? Are you planning to skip or something? I live an hour away, you know. We're gonna be late."

"Well, I was planning to sleep in. But since you so politely asked me to drive you to school, I'll take you. I can get there in fifteen minutes too."

"Liar."

"Twenty thousand yen."

"Deal."

After exactly fifteen minutes, Syaoran was pulling twenty thousand yen from the stubborn girl's hand.


	6. Chapter 6

So it's been a while.. I decided to update this piece as well. I don't know who has read this piece in the past - though I hope you enjoyed it somewhat if you did - but I am contemplating on a revision of this piece. Maybe I will upload all of the original and then revise it so you guys can compare? Haha, I find that I do like the basic premise but for some reason, I guess I was too naive or afraid to dive into deeper drama or other aspects that was to be explored.

Anyway, update. I hope you like it. :)

Oh! I recently found a amigurumi pattern for Kero.. I will be doing that as soon as I find the right yarn. *-* So excited!

Disclaimer: No one's mine!

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><p>Sakura was in utter defeat. To the extent that she didn't even pay attention to the freshman bolting down the flight of stairs with the observers laughing their faces off. The knowledge that a shortcut to the university laid behind her house had completely escaped her—the one that could take her straight to the school without the traffic lights. Of course, if she shared the road with Syaoran, no doubt he might someday kill her. The rate at which he was driving brought her to the point of near fainting.<p>

Now that there was time for her to have a decent breakfast rather than eating instant noodle every morning, Sakura decided that she'd avoid Syaoran as much as possible. No doubt going through the process of calling her uncle for Syaoran's number might have creep amber-eyed man out. It seems his name has never been taken off the records of his apartment complex as a tenant. Despite all that, Sakura swore to herself that she should and would never again endure such scrutinizing stares from the girls in class when she walked through the door with Syaoran.

For the next month, she saw in front of the class while he occupied the back, safe of the crowd of girls who fought to sit next to him thanks to the male students who envied his reputation. Whenever the bell would ring, Sakura Kinomoto was already out the door, sprinting down the route before anyone even stood up. Syaoran was never really aware of her efforts, except that it would only strike his curiosity when she would snap at him in a smartass way for everything he said—as though she was responding to some kind of challenge. Even Tomoyo noticed this strange behavior when the girl started to blatantly change the subject whenever he was involved.

The long-haired girl came up to him, threatened his masculinity while demanding what he had done to her best friend the night he took her home. When he made the mistake to reply, he knew from the familiar look in her eyes that she was spinning up the most convoluted plan ever. He decided to approach her with caution, for he knew never to disturb her in the midst of her master plans.

"Tomoyo... what are you want?"

"You have to take responsibility."

"What responsibility? Nothing happened!"

"Be a man, Li!"

"Eriol, get your crazy girlfriend away from me!" he shouted to his cousin, who was lazily lounging upon the couch. The guy merely gave him a look before turning back to what he was doing: his hobby of designing the latest hacking software. "I'm gonna get you for this!"

"Syaoran. You have to get back together with Sakura again."

"Why?"

"Because you obviously still like her."

"No I don't."

"Stop playing the denial card. Anyone can see it. You still care for her."

"Like and care are two different words."

"Of course, that's why they have their own definition in the dictionary. I minor in linguistics, remember?"

"I don't like her."

"Yes you do. Stop lying to yourself. Why do you think you came back?"

"I..." he caught Eriol's attention, who has now taken his eyes off the laptop screen to stare at his cousin curiously. He wanted to know why Syaoran came back too. "I can't tell you. Besides, Sakura doesn't like me anyways. Do you see the way she treats me?"

"Well, she has gotten aggressive with her show of emotions as of lately..."

"Aggressive? Try violent." Eriol chimed. "Tomoyo dear, you obviously weren't there when she punched me in the gut in the middle of poli-sci."

"I was designing my latest outfit. And don't change the subject, Li. I'm still talking to you."

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><p>Like it? Hate it? Wanna publish it? Or trash it?<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

Update!

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><p>"Sakura, you really need to be careful next time." Professor Ting rolled his eyes, unlocking the door to the classroom. As the younger woman slipped inside, he mumbled, "I can't always unlock the room for you like this. People will think there's something suspicious."<p>

"Well, we're related, so I can't imagine how sick their minds could get."

He shot her a look. He would jump at the gun to adopt her the moment she'd accept. Being the distant uncle and only sibling to her mother, Ting didn't get to spend as much time to the last connection to his sister. Of all relatives, Ting always had some sort of shotgun to volunteer his babysitting services to the girl upon hearing the news of her father being shipped off to a foreign land for his expeditions. Two year ago, he had managed to transfer his job to Japan from Taiwan

Only through ignoring the jealous looks of Fujitaka's siblings, Ting was able to focus on what Sakura wanted. Being a minor in Psychology, he had effectively influenced her to take one of his classes as a test run. Unfortunately, he hadn't realized what a monster he had created until after she started correcting him in his lectures. Of course, after a uncle-to-niece talk, she learned that perhaps it'd be better to write those corrections down if she couldn't hold down her nature of blurting out the truth.

When she had finished retrieving her precious ball point pen, the girl scurried out, leaving the professor to lock the doors once more. Sometimes he wished he could just slip an extra pen into her backpack that would look identical to the ones she uses. Unfortunately due to her uncanny ability to recognize her own possession, Ting had failed every time.

"So tell me again, why are you avoiding Syaoran?"

"I just told a while ago, how many times do I have to tell you?"

"I'm old. Refresh my memory."

"I think something might have happened that night I went to the club."

"You went to the club? Did you take any suspicious drinks from Eriol?"

Despite knowing Eriol personally through his father, Ting still didn't trust his niece near that boy. He would have locked Tomoyo up before letting her go out with him if they were related. It wasn't that Eriol was a horrible kid. Just that... he has this stream of bad luck following him, and people tended to get caught in it. As far as he knew, Tomoyo was the only one immune to it and from what Sakura was saying, the emerald-eyed girl was probably the worst of the bunch who were caught by this stream.

"Well, I woke up the next day with a hangover. And then I called you for Li's number."

"Yes, yes, and?"

"When he took me to school, all the girls started glaring at us when we entered the room."

"You have to admit, that _was_ pretty funny."

"No it's not. Stop laughing!"

"So why didn't you ride the subway?"

"Touya never let me use the subway. Before dad bought the car, he usually took me to school everyday on his bike. Of course, that was until he met Yukito. Then I got booted off to the curb and had to learn how to rollerblade."

"Why don't you use the car?"

"I never learned how to drive."

"Really...wait a minute, you mean you guys only have one car?"

"Well, yea. It was red before I painted it pink."

"Why would you paint it pink?"

"Well, it was also a payback for not letting me drive. Touya would never drive around in a pink car. Besides, why wouldn't you paint anything pink? It's such a cheery color. The only reason why my house isn't pink is because the neighborhood was against it."

Ting grimaced, grateful that the girl's house wasn't pink. Saying that it was such a cheery color was unlike her, for Sakura has been anything but cheery. He wouldn't want to walk into a pink house either.

"Why didn't you walk here that day then?"

"I already told you. I didn't know about the fifteen minute route."

"Well, I imagine so, you take an hour to get here everyday. How do you not know about a route that you've lived near for twenty-three years?"

"Maybe because I've never used it before."

"And what were you talking about a while ago with this... date?"

"I don't know if I should go. Li's just being stupid. I bet Tomoyo and Eriol are in on it too. Knowing them, I bet they forced him to. So there's no point in coming if he wasn't going to ask me willingly."

"You mean you were going to come if he had actually asked you?"

"Well…" She paused, thinking about her answer. The thought never really crossed her mind, but apparently, the answer was clear: "Yeah."

"You're late."

Sakura wanted to slap the smirk off his lips, although that wasn't physically possible. Syaoran didn't even take his eyes off the pages of his book when she had arrived panting like an idiot after running seven blocks in her heels. Instead, all he said were those two little words that wanted to send her after him with her death glare, hoping that it'd kill him within a second.

"It's not my fault if there's traffic."

"Why didn't you just rollerblade here?" he asked mockingly, turning yet another page in the who-knows-how-old physics book that had recently turned up in the library.

"What do you want, Li?" she got straight to the point, not wasting another second.

If only she didn't change her mind. It was bad enough that she had accepted to this strange meeting, one that consisted of just the two of them, and it was worse that she spent half an hour on her wardrobe. Sakura suspected that Tomoyo had something to do with it, calling at just the right moment with the right advice. Sakura, being the idiot as always, listened to her, and now she was standing at this café shop in the jean skirt she had been running in. Not to mention, she was trying really hard not to just strip her jacket, but then, she was never one to show indecency in public, even if it _is_ just a tank top.

"A little bird told me that you wanted to spend a day with me. Is it so bad that I want to grant your wish?" he answered playfully.

"Quit screwing around. _You_ were the one who asked _me_! I don't talk to birds. Get over yourself, Li."

"You've gotten quite harsh, Sakura."

"Have I? Or are you just clueless?" When she said those words, he finally looked up at her. Perhaps it was to see the expression on her face, or perhaps he was slightly shocked at her words, she wasn't sure.

Either way, Syaoran simply returned to his book, responding nonchalantly: "Save me the trouble, Sakura. I don't want to be here either. Don't look now, but Tomoyo's standing behind that phone booth."

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"History repeats itself. What do you expect?"

Sakura sat down, defeated. She wanted to retort that if history repeated itself, they wouldn't be speaking to each other in such a way at the moment. She had better things to do at the moment. She cancelled her first economics class to be out here; of course, they had given her a refund, but still, it was a waste of her time. And now she's with… this guy.

For the past fifteen minutes, they've been sitting in the midst of the busy street. People walked past without touching them, without interrupting them, and yet, he was engrossed in the thick leather bound book upon his lap. Luckily, she didn't have to grudgingly admit that he was attractive in the way his eyes lazily scanned the book, taking in the information with his photographic memory. He had been ignoring her for the entire time, reading his book while she sat idly with her messenger bag upon her lap, absentmindedly staring at him.

After flipping his final page, Syaoran slammed his book shut, preparing to bring the conversation to life once more until he saw her hypnotized stare. Her emerald eyes stared straight at him, all thoughts hidden behind those bangs, hidden from him and everyone else. Swallowing, he fought hard to suppress the heat inside him. For goodness sake, he was a man already, not some adolescent high school boy who was first going through puberty. The girl sitting across from him hated his guts, probably; from the way she spoke to him, he probably reserved the top spot on her black list. He had never thought it would ever turn out this way. He used to be able to read her like a book, and now, she was a complete stranger.

"Are you going to keep staring at me? Or are we going to go somewhere? Tomoyo would probably march over here or scream the hell out of me when she calls me if we don't start moving."

Blinking rapidly, she quickly regained her composure, not quickly enough to hide the shade of pink that invaded her cheeks before she responded: "Where are we going?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"Well…" She thought for a moment. The flash of brightening in her expression slipped away as she mumbled, "Never mind… We could just pretend that we're busy and go our own ways, you know, home?"

"Sakura. Where do you want to go?"

"Penguin Park."

"Tell me again, why did I take you here?" Syaoran asked regrettably, unable to fathom why the girl in front of him was holding her lab notebook and jotting down the reaction of a child who has just gotten off a rollercoaster.

"Weren't you there on Friday? Those damn bio kids think they can do physics better than we can. I'm gonna show them that they suck at biology," she responded, bending down to ask for more details as to how the younger child was feeling.

"Sakura, you're scaring him. Stop," Syaoran said, turning away from her in hopes that people wouldn't think that he was associated with someone like her.

Before Sakura could finish writing, the kid had scurried off to the nearest bathroom to escape the lunatic trying to record his reaction after a roller coaster ride. They had been here for no more than fifteen minutes and Sakura was already receiving strange stares from bystanders. Has she always been this strange?

Perhaps she has simply changed, Syaoran thought. A few years ago, she wouldn't have dared go up to anyone and ask them such a thing as: "How did you feel about that? Are you aware that the rollercoaster was running just a tad below the speed of sound? May I feel your stomach to analyze its effects?"

Now? Surely, there was no limit as to what she could ask. He began to wonder why Tomoyo has done little to stop this drastic change in the girl he has known. Sure, she's still innocent, to some extent, but now she was more bitter than so. The bitterness was extremely contagious, especially when she's hanging around her uncle. The professor would suddenly call on her and start making fun of her when her tongue is tied from trying to explain a theory.

Soon, they were walking around the amusement park, enjoying the games for prizes. Syaoran was rather pleased that the fruits of his efforts from years ago is still evident in Sakura when she played aim and shoot games. The girl hit everything and missed none. Of course, she made him carry the bulk of her stuffed animals until he talked the guard into letting him use their office as storage because it was their "anniversary."

As the day was closing, Syaoran looked at the last item on the list. When he saw the words, he shook his head, dismissing the thought immediately. There's no way she'd go through that. Surely, she'd rather be killed than to have to go through something like that. Nonetheless, he had no choice. About an hour into their visit to the amusement park, the chocolate brown-haired male noticed something peculiar.

Somehow, a couple was always trailing them. Undoubtedly Tomoyo and Eriol. The girl who attempted to hide her long ebony hair under a hat and the black eye of her video camera within the giant bag she calls a purse and her boyfriend, the man who did not even bother with a disguise when he stood out in the open, looking out towards the lake in the middle of the park. Sakura, being most oblivious to her surroundings, had no clue.

If he didn't do anything, these two would probably follow them home. He'd rather go through that with a Syaoran rolled his eyes, beckoning her to their final source of amusement. Before he could even start walking, she was fastened to his arms, eyes defiant and rebellious.

"Do we have a problem, Miss Kinomoto?"

"Don't we? That's a haunted house."

"It's made out of toilet paper."

"And what does that change? It's a haunted house. Don't you see the sign?" she stared at him dumbly.

He rolled his eyes once more, not able to believe that even after all these years she's still—"You're scared, aren't you?"

"Of course not. I think it's immature to visit a haunted house when Halloween has already passed."

"If you haven't noticed, the haunted house has two exits and is, well, really dark inside. If we can go in there and ditch the two goonies behind us, we can do whatever we want for the rest of the time."

The auburn-haired lady stared blankly at him. Despite the dumb expression on her face, he could tell that her gears were turning. No doubt she's calculating every single step they would take once inside the haunted house so they wouldn't have to go on this stupid date. Disappointed as he was of this possible thought, Syaoran would have rather they had been on mutual terms when this rendezvous happened. Instead, the girl currently wants to tear his guts out.

"Let's do it."

"AHHH!" Sakura screamed for the sixth time, clawing into Syaoran's hand for the seventh for the first time she had done so out of his permission to hurt him before they entered the haunted house. To add to his carelessness, he even said that she could hold onto him if she got scared.

To think that such a small action would quench her fear was perhaps Syaoran's downfall of such a day, for immediately into the haunted house, she had attached herself to his arm like a leech and proceeded to scream when the first obstacle came at them. As usual, the chocolate brown-haired young man remained calm, seeing no need for fear in the poorly designed costumes of so-called monster. As a matter of fact, he couldn't recognize that the pedophile-looking old guy with a black sweater tied around his neck was supposed to be Dracula. Neither were the implications of having permanent marker drawings on one's forehead a clear symbol of Frankenstein. Japan was far too slow on its knowledge of American monsters.

Of course, saying such thing would not be sufficed to declare Syaoran some type of hero to the girl next to her. That he thought the haunted house was a boring place and was not fun at all was another grave mistake for they have not gone halfway before they met one of perhaps the scariest things in the world: a clown. Syaoran would never admit this to anyone, but he was deathly scared of clowns. He had been trained ever since he was a child to never show fear on his face, so of course, upon seeing the clown, he would simply blink and walk past it, desperate to ignore the urge to begin running and screaming.

However, this trip to the haunted house with Sakura not only heightened his fear of such clowns, but it also… well, he learned how to show his fears. Syaoran screamed so loudly that the clown pushed past him and ran straight out of the door, cursing about the lack of benefits for such a ridiculous summer job. A while after he calmed down, Syaoran began to ponder about the familiarity of the voice. The person who talked about paying for the university of Tokyo, just like Takashi, and paying for his bills, just like Takashi, and the date with his girlfriend some Saturday again, just like Takashi, sure sounded a lot like Takashi.

Either way. It didn't matter, Syaoran knew as he looked down at the girl latched onto his arm. Even in the dim lighting, he could see her glittering nails lodged into his arm—he wasn't sure if it was good that Tomoyo suggested such a color to her, it was so…un-Sakura—and feel her quivering against him.

Suddenly she stopped, as though some strange enlightenment awakened her: "Wait a minute, Li, was that you screaming?"

He shook his head. He thanked whoever it was that designed the haunted house to be so dim that the person next to him, could not see the expression on his face nor distinguish between that he was the one screaming. In a split second, he proceeded to respond: "Screaming? Do you think I can scream that high? It was the clown, of course. Sakura, I have a proposition."

"You're using big words now?"

"If you don't want to get out of here, that's fine with me too."

"What do you want?"

"We could simply go outside, hold hands, pretend we're happy, mock a kiss, and go home. Surely by then, those two would give up and be happy in their fools' paradise."

"Why didn't you think of this sooner?"

"And miss out on seeing you scream?"

"You ass."

It probably wasn't until a week later that the two began to communicate again. Unlike other cases where communication would be induced by a mere spark of desire to be friendly to another being, this type of communication was entirely different. Professor Ting decided one day when he woke up from his afternoon nap, after having watched his daily soap opera and enjoyed his daily bowl of cereal, that he would make his students participate in the annual science convention.

Said annual science convention was just like any other science fair, except… for big kids. It wasn't so much that he wanted his students to excel at his subject and explore further into their area of interest; he simply wanted to perform a side experiment. As predictable as it may seem, he had earlier wanted Sakura and Syaoran to work together and record qualitative data (and quantitative as well) on how they work together—or at least, how they don't work together. Being two of his best students, he wanted to see the effects of putting two dominating people together.

Perhaps dominating was not the right word to describe Syaoran. Whenever he would perform his labs, the girl who had rushed to him first would simply sit idly as his lab partner and stare at his face while he instructed her—and then did what he instructed himself—to do. Basically, he was talking to himself while doing the entire experiment. Sakura, on the other hand, would find herself working with another student who has always sat in the back of the room. Ting could not, for his own life, recall the name of the boy, except that he would spit whenever he talked with a mouth full of braces and drop his gigantic glasses. Either way, it did not matter. She made the boy do everything, freely bossing him to get the lab equipments while she set up the table. Then afterwards, she would make him perform the lab and get so frustrated when he could not do what she had commanded and do the entire experiment herself.

So, Ting thought, dominating was probably the right word.

Either way, instead of putting the two together on the assignment, Ting thought he would do something fun. Well, he thought. When he had told the two of them that, Sakura's jaw dropped so low that he swore it hit the ground. Syaoran merely shook his head and returned to his seat, not able to show his frustration at his present predicament simply because he was associated with the girl in her past.

"Are you kidding me?" Sakura asked.

Ting was almost afraid to answer, but he did so anyways: "No, I'm not Sakura. I just thought that since you two are tied for the highest grade in my class, this would be a perfect opportunity for you two to break that tie. What else would be a perfect contr—er, challenge than making you do the same topic? I mean, at this point, it's simply a matter of who gives me the topic first, then the other will have to follow along."

"You're performing an experiment, are you?"

"Why ever would you accuse me of such a treacherous thing? An experiment with human test subjects? I would never!"

"You almost said control."

"Why, I am a scientist, Sakura. It is perfectly normal for me to say control when referring to something that will stay constant throughout a course of something that is happening."

"There's no use arguing with him, Kinomoto," Syaoran's voice bellowed behind her where he sat, jotting his ideas down. "He'll make us work together if you talk too much."

Sakura pouted, turning around sharply to return to the back of the room to write down her ideas.

At 3 PM the next day, Professor Ting returned from his long coffee break and found two pieces of paper on his desk. The first was Syaoran's, written with the bare minimum efforts of simply his name and his potential ideas—all very creative and interesting. The second was Sakura. Ting laughed, amused by the effort his niece was making to simply best the guy. On ten pages, typed and posted with written sticky notes, she practically mapped out five potential and simple—not to mention interesting and practical—experiments that she wanted.

Needless to say, Ting had difficulties deciding which he wanted to pick. Syaoran's ideas—mainly ranging from the usage of martial arts and other interestingly physical things—offered interesting possible apparatuses while Sakura—musically-oriented, as emphasized by a particular experiment with which she took up five pages—also explored interesting possibilities. Which would he choose, Ting wondered? His niece or the boy who dated his niece?

Why, being a scientist, the kinship would never play into the factor. Of course Ting would choose both. That would probably be the best catalyst for his experiment.

"You want us to do a physics lab on a dance?" Sakura stared at him dumbly, as though the thought of music associating with dance never crossed her mind while she was writing up her proposal. Clearly, she was at an advantage, just hearing her uncle say dance.

Instead of stopping at such a safe spot, the old man continued talking and added: "Of course, the physical qualities that must follow the dance must embody some form of martial arts."

Sakura turned around to glare at Syaoran, who simply shrugged at her.

"Sword dance."

"YES!" the old man jumped at the brown-haired man's suggestion: "Indeed. Sword dances would be a wonderful dance to observe."

"Thanks a lot," the girl glared at the younger man even more, wishing that he'd burn and melt right in front of her.

* * *

><p>I'm glad to see that there are still people reading this. XD<p> 


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